In old texts, Buddha was promoting his way as a middle path between two (strawman?) alternatives. Chapman reiterates the same using modern words, calling those alternatives “eternalism” and “nihilism”.
In neither case are these positions strawmen. In the Buddha’s time, there really were people who believed in wielding power to make their lives comfortable to insulate themselves from suffering and people who believed that they could escape suffering by living lives of extreme asceticism. In fact, we still have people who believe these two things today, and lots of people believe weak versions of these view points: they think they can either fix their lives and finally be happy by buying one more thing or by finding happiness in complete denial of their desires.
Similarly, eternalism and nihilism, though in the former case a non-standard name for this philosophical position, are real positions adopted by real people, and as David argues in places, many people assume eternalism or nihilism without ever being very explicit about it, but if you press them on their beliefs it’ll become clear which assumption they are making. This is pretty normal, as lots of people have lots of non-explicit beliefs that they are assuming and they only become explicit when it’s forced out of them and given a name.
I would say that Chapman seems very confident that Buddha knew the answers to everything. And of course, Buddha couldn’t know about the moral philosophy that happened later, so there is neither agreement, nor disagreement.
I think this is a mischaracterization of Chapman’s views.
He is a Buddhist. His way of seeing the world is very Buddhist influenced. And yet I think David would be quick the admit that Buddhism doesn’t have all the answer, because if it did then someplace like Tibet or Myanmar would be a utopian paradise (they are not).
It is fair to say that Chapman thinks Buddhism offers some answers to the problems in the modern world, but I think it’s unlikely he’d say that the Buddha in particular or Buddhism in general offers answers to everything. You can reach out and ask him, but I’m pretty sure, for example, that he’d happily admit the Buddha didn’t really know anything about quantum mechanics or general relativity or the germ theory of disease.
I think Less Wrong needs an emoji for “yet another sneaky attempt to promote Buddhist dogma”.
I know there’s a lot of folks on Less Wrong interested in Buddhism and who bring Buddhist ideas here. Maybe this is annoying if you think Buddhism in particular or religion in general are silly and that any ideas that come from them, even if they turn out to be correct, are tainted by this provenance.
I think it’s worth considering that most people on Less Wrong who are into Buddhism, like myself, did not start out Buddhist, and instead became interested in Buddhism because we were trying to find answers to questions. Traditional Western, rationalist sources offered inadequate answers. Buddhism offered some answers that seem correct in that they, for example, made our lives better.
If Buddhism knows how to make you happy, then you should want to believe that Buddhism is correct about how to make you happy, and you should want to practice Buddhism is you want to be happy. If you think Buddhist techniques don’t work or Buddhist philosophy is wrong, then you need to make specific arguments about why and where it is wrong.
In neither case are these positions strawmen. In the Buddha’s time, there really were people who believed in wielding power to make their lives comfortable to insulate themselves from suffering and people who believed that they could escape suffering by living lives of extreme asceticism. In fact, we still have people who believe these two things today, and lots of people believe weak versions of these view points: they think they can either fix their lives and finally be happy by buying one more thing or by finding happiness in complete denial of their desires.
Similarly, eternalism and nihilism, though in the former case a non-standard name for this philosophical position, are real positions adopted by real people, and as David argues in places, many people assume eternalism or nihilism without ever being very explicit about it, but if you press them on their beliefs it’ll become clear which assumption they are making. This is pretty normal, as lots of people have lots of non-explicit beliefs that they are assuming and they only become explicit when it’s forced out of them and given a name.
I think this is a mischaracterization of Chapman’s views.
He is a Buddhist. His way of seeing the world is very Buddhist influenced. And yet I think David would be quick the admit that Buddhism doesn’t have all the answer, because if it did then someplace like Tibet or Myanmar would be a utopian paradise (they are not).
It is fair to say that Chapman thinks Buddhism offers some answers to the problems in the modern world, but I think it’s unlikely he’d say that the Buddha in particular or Buddhism in general offers answers to everything. You can reach out and ask him, but I’m pretty sure, for example, that he’d happily admit the Buddha didn’t really know anything about quantum mechanics or general relativity or the germ theory of disease.
I know there’s a lot of folks on Less Wrong interested in Buddhism and who bring Buddhist ideas here. Maybe this is annoying if you think Buddhism in particular or religion in general are silly and that any ideas that come from them, even if they turn out to be correct, are tainted by this provenance.
I think it’s worth considering that most people on Less Wrong who are into Buddhism, like myself, did not start out Buddhist, and instead became interested in Buddhism because we were trying to find answers to questions. Traditional Western, rationalist sources offered inadequate answers. Buddhism offered some answers that seem correct in that they, for example, made our lives better.
If Buddhism knows how to make you happy, then you should want to believe that Buddhism is correct about how to make you happy, and you should want to practice Buddhism is you want to be happy. If you think Buddhist techniques don’t work or Buddhist philosophy is wrong, then you need to make specific arguments about why and where it is wrong.